Until as recently as five years ago, the Internet was used primarily by the scientific and technical community and was relatively unknown outside of such circles. And now, five years hence, knowledge of the Internet, and its use, are ubiquitous.
Businesses have recognized the benefits of establishing a presence on the Internet, and, more particularly, on the World Wide Web (Web). One benefit is that it is a convenient way for both the buyer and the seller to do business; products and services can be ordered on-line. Another benefit to a business is that for the money spent, its advertising can reach a lot of prospective customers.
One form of Internet advertising is to establish a Web site operable to download at least one "Web page" to a user "visiting" that Web site. A Web page contains a single file of hypertext information, which may be text, graphics and even sound. The main Web page of a given Web site is referred to as a "Home page." The Home page is typically the first page a user will see when visiting a site. The Home page usually contains hypertext "links," to other subsidiary Web pages providing additional information about the business.
A Web site is ineffective as an advertising tool unless someone visits it, And, the only ones visiting the site are those that have sought it out. To increase the likelihood of such visitations, businesses may list their Web site on one or more Web directories. A user interested in particular products or services can use a search engine to search the Web directory and identify businesses providing such products or services and their Web address. The user can then "browse" the Web sites of the businesses offering the products/services of interest.
A directory listing increases the likelihood of a user finding the Web site of a particular business. Still, an advertiser listing will be found only if the user is looking for the goods or services provided by the advertiser. As such, many frequently-visited Web sites offer businesses a more aggressive alternative to a simple directory listing. In particular, a business can choose to have a "banner" displayed or "published" by such a frequently-visited site.
The banner describes an area of a Web page that can be used to display logos, etc., that will hopefully entice the reader to obtain further information pertaining to the banner. If so enticed, the reader can "click" on the banner, assuming the banner is a link, and follow the link to, for example, the Web site of the business "behind" the banner. The banner provides substantially more of an advertising presence to the advertiser than a directory listing, since, at least for a contracted period of time, the banner is conspicuously displayed on the Web page. Thus, regardless of a user purpose for visiting such a site, he may see the advertiser banner displayed.
While there is typically no cost for having one Web site listed in a directory, advertising with a banner is typically provided for a fee. The cost of advertising at such a site may be based, for example, on the number of times the site displays the banner or on the number of times a user clicks on the banner linked to the advertiser Web site. And, of course, the cost is based on the popularity of the frequently-visited site. While anyone with a Web site can display a banner, advertisers will want to advertise at frequently-visited sites, such as Web directories and large service providers that offer their own information and online resources as well as Internet access such as America Online, Compuserve, Prodigy and the like.
Regardless of the fee basis, both the advertiser and the administrator of the banner-publishing site will typically have an interest in knowing certain statistics pertaining to advertising effectiveness. For example, if the fee for the advertising is based on the number of clicks on the banner, then both parties will want this statistic. The advertiser can obtain this information by interrogating an access log maintained by the advertiser Web site. This information, however, is not directly available to the banner-publishing site. While it can be obtained from the advertiser, the publishing-site administrator would presumably prefer receiving the relevant statistics from an unbiased source.
Further, since advertisers will often advertise at more than one location, both the advertisers and the publishers will typically have an interest in the statistics pertaining to the effectiveness of an individual publishing site at generating leads for the advertiser. In other words, they will be interested in knowing the percentage of the total number of "clicks" on the banner generated by each publishing site. Currently, such information is not readily available. To obtain it requires that the appropriate expertise is available, and that the server at the advertiser Web site is appropriately configured.
In view of the value of such statistics, and the relative inconvenience in obtaining such information, a need presently exists for an unbiased, readily available source of statistical/accounting information for Internet advertisers and advertising publishers.